Thursday, 30 October 2014

What did the Victorians ever do for us? Education.

What did
the Victorians ever do for us? They gave us good education.

A typical Victorian classroom

In the 20th century, we are preoccupied with learning
about the Victorians and throw ourselves into studying every inch of their existence.
Whether it’s their clothes, their books, their food or their way of life we are
adamant to understand it all, and we’ve become pretty good at it too. However,
what we hear less about it what they themselves were learning about, rather
than teaching us. Beneath their attitudes to working men and women, one finds
themselves wondering whether teaching was seen as a respectable profession and
whether children respected their teachers, as occurs now. With their caning,
blackboards and traditional uniforms Victorian education is mostly laughed at
in this day and age however, further research has led me to understand that
more of our education is based on Victorian education than we may realise.

Schools in the Victorian era began being taken seriously for
the first time in 1833 when the government awarded the first grants to schools
to ensure quality of teaching was high, this however did not spark an influx of
children in education as one might think. The reality of the matter was, that
school was for the privileged children, and even then, rich children had
governesses’ and poor children had jobs to do. There was no need for schools,
and therefore, although schools existed they were not fully functional or beneficial
to society. In 1844 parliament passed a law that stated the children who
laboured in factories were to be given six half days off a week to attend
school. However, this does not necessarily mean that children used or were
allowed this time for studying as their employers and parents would prefer them
to be earning money, as this was far more important in an era where financial
security was almost unheard of. It was the Victorians who made the most drastic
changes to education and the legislation surrounding it and therefore paved the
way for new generations to enjoy the wonders of an educated society. In 1870,
the government passed the first education act that dealt solely with the
provision of education within the UK. This Act ensured that awareness of the
importance of schools was understood within the community and showed the Victorians
that the national issue of education had to be at the forefront of changes
being made. The act “allowed voluntary schools to carry on unchanged, but
established a system of 'school boards' to build and manage schools in areas
where they were needed. The boards were locally elected bodies which drew their
funding from the local rates. Unlike the voluntary schools, religious teaching
in the board schools was to be 'non-denominational'.”

So imagine it’s 2014, and when you turn 6 or 7 and the
realisation that you should be at school hits you. Upon asking your parents,
they tell you that you are not allowed to enter the scholastic system because
you are a female and this is considered inappropriate and downright unnecessary.
As a female in higher education myself, this idea is incomprehensible. The
right to an education is a right that should be imparted to all genders, of all
backgrounds, in all cultures. In other words, EDUCATION FOR THE NATION. In the Victorian
era, this idea was not necessarily agreed with and when schools began, girls
were certainly not among the first to attend. However, Dame schools were
present at this time which were developed in good faith but in the end only
taught that this method of teaching children was mostly redundant. Dame schools
were run by women, which was an issue in itself, but more to the point they did
not have high standards of education whatsoever; Dame schools were short lived as
they were abolished in 1880 for not reaching the government standards and were deemed
inadequate.

When Dickens was writing his novel Hard Times, he was in the climax of the changes in education and the scholastic system. He made his thoughts clear on education,
throughout his novel and begins it with Mr Gradgrind stating, “Now, what I want
is facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but facts. Facts alone are wanted
in life” which highlights the vital need for schools. If schools did not teach
these facts, these children would not be able to successfully “form the mind of
reasoning animals” which, in turn, would leave the next generation at a loss.
It is for this reason, that we must thank the Victorians and all their major
changes to the school system. If it weren’t for them, we could possibly still
expecting children at age 8 to be chimney sweeps and men to still be dominant
in a demoralising way towards women. These children being taught “only facts”,
as Dickens puts it, is what has led to some of the greatest thinkers the world
has ever heard of. Those of us out there who have dreams of being teachers or
leaders, this is what we have the Victorians to thank for. In Hard Times, Dickens contrasts educated
people and non-educated by using the word “Hands” for labourers, but this only
truly is understood by the reader when one of the “Hands” Stephen begins
talking, and uses English dialect to emphasise to the reader the importance of
education, and that there is a clear difference between his speech and everyone
else’s: “Look how you considers of us, and writes of us, and talks to us, and
goes up wi’ your deputations to secretaries o’ state ‘bout us, and how yo’ are
alwus right, and how we are alwus wrong […]”. With this sharp contrast in
speech, it is clear that the world Dickens envisaged without education was not
sufficient for the future.

The Bethnal Green
Museum is a branch of the Victoria & Albert museum in London which is
based on knowledge of the Victorians and boasts elements of Victorian education
that we take for granted, from items such as alphabet blocks to the well known
abacus. As we all know, play is a crucial part of a child’s development and
learning and it is for this reason that items such as these have such an
important part in this museum. Using designs from Paul & Majorie Abbatt,
Friedrick Froebel and Maria Montessori, the V&A allows a modern day
researchers to understand how children were expected to learn through play in
the Victorian era. On display, the museum currently has items such as the
following:

This unwelcoming looking Jack in the box was manufactured c. 1820-1850 and was
popular in the Victorian era for children’s development and play. The idea that
the toy had basic science involved in the way it was a toy, was vital for
children who had begun to grasp education.

Throughout the Victorian era, the turnaround in terms of
education was one of the drastic changes that created the world in which we
live in today, but is not always remembered. Perhaps because we take education for
granted these days, or maybe simply because we are too busy talking about the
importance of gender and class divide that this is overlooked. It is important
to remember that in this case, the Victorians saved us from years of uneducated
generations and low paid jobs as a result of this. As a 19 year old undergraduate,
I can safely say that the education reforms made all those years ago were most
definitely worth it.